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Post by jdd2 on Nov 4, 2019 20:57:12 GMT -5
Who is the whistleblower... Who is the whistleblower... Who is the whistleblower... > "Hey, look at this shiny ball over here!"
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Post by epaul on Nov 4, 2019 21:58:00 GMT -5
If I were the Whistle Blower, I would be feeling some gratitude towards Trump for challenging me to reveal myself.
I would say this: "Ok, Here I am. I was going to remain incognito out of respect for the Whistle Blower process, but you called, you demanded, Mr. President, so ok, here I am and this is my story."
I would be thinking this: Thank you, you crooked incompetent bastard! I was screwed. There was no way I could come out publicly on my own on this one and sign a book deal and hit the gravy circuit without being accused of doing all this in hopes of cashing in on the deal. I was screwed. But now, hah, thank you, Mr. President, you opened the door for me. I get to have my cake and eat it too.
How can going public at this point compromise the whistleblower? Coming out will steal Trump's thunder. The Trumpanistas can't call him or her a sneak or coward. Not if he or she comes out tall and proud. Can't call him or her an opportunist hoping to cash in on fame/infamy as Trump demanded the revealing. Enough will regard this person as a hero with a story to tell that a book deal, talk shows, free meals will all be in the cards. Screw work."
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Post by epaul on Nov 4, 2019 22:37:45 GMT -5
(I am not implying the WB did this for personal reward. But, we live in the world we live in, and if he or she comes out as a result of Trump's demand, I see no harm for WB, only benefit. I would come out, stand tall and say straight to Trump's face, "You asked for me? Here I am.")
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Post by dradtke on Nov 5, 2019 9:30:11 GMT -5
The Trumpanistas can't call him or her a sneak or coward. Not if he or she comes out tall and proud. Can't call him or her an opportunist hoping to cash in on fame/infamy as Trump demanded the revealing. Oh, don't worry. They'll find a way to move the goalposts and bitch and whine about something else. They always do every time someone meets their demands.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Nov 5, 2019 14:12:00 GMT -5
Gordon Sondlund has apparently decided he'd rather not go to jail for perjury. "A critical witness in the impeachment inquiry offered Congress substantial new testimony this week, revealing that he told a top Ukrainian official that the country likely would not receive American military aid unless it publicly committed to investigations President Trump wanted. The disclosure from Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, in four new pages of sworn testimony released on Tuesday, confirmed his involvement in essentially laying out a quid pro quo to Ukraine that he had previously not acknowledged." www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/politics/impeachment-trump.htmlLet's be as clear as we can here. Trump wanted Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens. He didn't care about what the investigation might or might not turn up. A foreign government "investigating" Biden would be enough for him to bang the corruption drum all the way to November 2020. The Whistle Blower's assertions continue to be backed up by every person willing to go under oath.
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Post by AlanC on Nov 5, 2019 16:04:49 GMT -5
What do you two think about Hunter & Joe? Did they do anything wrong?
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Nov 5, 2019 16:17:52 GMT -5
What do you two think about Hunter & Joe? Did they do anything wrong? My opinion on that is not relevant. But since you asked, I think that ethically it stinks. At a minimum Hunter was using his father's name to make obscene amounts of money. But I see no serious suggestion that anything illegal happened. President Warren might try to make that sort of thing illegal, but for now it's obviously not (e.g., Trump's kids are into that kind of stuff up to their collar stays.)
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Post by jdd2 on Nov 5, 2019 16:42:20 GMT -5
Hunter and joe are in the same boat as ivanka, jared, and captain chaos himself--profiting off their positions. All ethically bad and should not be happening or allowed, but also quite different from what trump's been impeached for.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Nov 5, 2019 16:53:28 GMT -5
@realdonaldtrump - “The Ambassador to the European Union has already testified, he said there was no quid pro quo. He said the President had told him that.” @kilmeade @foxandfriends (4:11 AM, October 22, 2019)
Deep Throat- Forget the myths the media's created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
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Post by lar on Nov 6, 2019 15:37:05 GMT -5
I'm just about fed up with this whole damned impeachment thing. I'd like to think that the public at large is smart enough to see what's going on and punish both parties for their respective parts in this.
At this point there is no doubt in my mind that Trump did what the Democrats say he did. Should he be impeached for it? That question is a little harder to answer. I understand the Democrats point of view. After 3 years they've finally found something they can hang on Trump. But the Democrats have been pushing impeachment for as long as Trump has been president. The fact that they were pushing for it long before they had a reason needs to be considered. One would think that they could have come up with something better than something that appears to me to be more of an ethical lapse than an actual crime. It's not like Trump tried to make off with the crown jewels. This seems like pretty small potatoes and in my opinion makes the Democrats look kind of petty.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are falling very short of covering themselves with glory. If I was a more generous person I might admit to feeling a bit sorry for their plight. Back in the day (if one can refer to 2016 in that manner) some of these people were on the "never Trump" team. Now they are scared to death that if they don't support Trump in the impeachment they may find themselves unemployed when Trump attacks them. That can't be a very comfortable spot. My mother always told me I should be careful who I hang around with. She may have been right.
The Democrats keep saying that the Republicans should be addressing the impeachment process based on the merits and not the process itself. The Republicans have a point of view on this that has some merit. Trump is being impeached in large part because he's Trump. The Democrats have never made a secret of the fact they want Trump out of office and they don't care much how they accomplish it. Given that, the Republicans do have some justification for condemning the impeachment. Although the Democrats may be following the Constitution with regard to impeachment the entire effort seems to me to be nothing but a transparent attempt to remove a sitting president just because they don't like him. That seems tawdry to me and beneath the dignity of the Congress.
I have a lot of trouble with the witness no-shows. In my opinion they ought to be locked up for ignoring a Congressional subpoena. By the same token, if they have genuine ethical issues with cooperating with an inquiry that's primarily aimed at political retribution and that seems to have little to do with laws broken it's difficult to argue against their reasoning.
Yes, I think Trump offered a quid pro quo, whether expressed or implied, for Ukraine investigating the Bidens.
Yes, Biden is a political rival and yes finding out that he was culpable of some crime could have an effect on the 2020 elections. I get all of that.
I've read a fair amount about the both the investigations that did and did not occur in Ukraine. What I've read in news outlets I have at least some little trust in, has convinced me that Burisma was never really investigated to any great extent. The Washington Post reports that there remains some question about how the company secured it's licenses. I don't care a lot about Hunter Biden. He's not running for president and he's not the first influential person's son to be be offered a job. However, if there were issues at Burisma, whether they happened before Hunter got there or not, and if he knew about them and if his father knew about them and set out to protect his son, I see a problem. Shouldn't we know about that?
The Democrats are already immersed in influencing the 2020 election by virtue of the impeachment. We know about Trump and what he did. The voters will decide how much that counts with them. On the other side of things, we don't know about Biden. Do the voters have a right to know and to make up their minds?
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Nov 6, 2019 16:04:18 GMT -5
I'm just about fed up with this whole damned impeachment thing. I'd like to think that the public at large is smart enough to see what's going on and punish both parties for their respective parts in this. At this point there is no doubt in my mind that Trump did what the Democrats say he did. Should he be impeached for it? That question is a little harder to answer. I understand the Democrats point of view. After 3 years they've finally found something they can hang on Trump. But the Democrats have been pushing impeachment for as long as Trump has been president. The fact that they were pushing for it long before they had a reason needs to be considered. One would think that they could have come up with something better than something that appears to me to be more of an ethical lapse than an actual crime. It's not like Trump tried to make off with the crown jewels. This seems like pretty small potatoes and in my opinion makes the Democrats look kind of petty. Meanwhile, the Republicans are falling very short of covering themselves with glory. If I was a more generous person I might admit to feeling a bit sorry for their plight. Back in the day (if one can refer to 2016 in that manner) some of these people were on the "never Trump" team. Now they are scared to death that if they don't support Trump in the impeachment they may find themselves unemployed when Trump attacks them. That can't be a very comfortable spot. My mother always told me I should be careful who I hang around with. She may have been right. The Democrats keep saying that the Republicans should be addressing the impeachment process based on the merits and not the process itself. The Republicans have a point of view on this that has some merit. Trump is being impeached in large part because he's Trump. The Democrats have never made a secret of the fact they want Trump out of office and they don't care much how they accomplish it. Given that, the Republicans do have some justification for condemning the impeachment. Although the Democrats may be following the Constitution with regard to impeachment the entire effort seems to me to be nothing but a transparent attempt to remove a sitting president just because they don't like him. That seems tawdry to me and beneath the dignity of the Congress. I have a lot of trouble with the witness no-shows. In my opinion they ought to be locked up for ignoring a Congressional subpoena. By the same token, if they have genuine ethical issues with cooperating with an inquiry that's primarily aimed at political retribution and that seems to have little to do with laws broken it's difficult to argue against their reasoning. Yes, I think Trump offered a quid pro quo, whether expressed or implied, for Ukraine investigating the Bidens. Yes, Biden is a political rival and yes finding out that he was culpable of some crime could have an effect on the 2020 elections. I get all of that. I've read a fair amount about the both the investigations that did and did not occur in Ukraine. What I've read in news outlets I have at least some little trust in, has convinced me that Burisma was never really investigated to any great extent. The Washington Post reports that there remains some question about how the company secured it's licenses. I don't care a lot about Hunter Biden. He's not running for president and he's not the first influential person's son to be be offered a job. However, if there were issues at Burisma, whether they happened before Hunter got there or not, and if he knew about them and if his father knew about them and set out to protect his son, I see a problem. Shouldn't we know about that? The Democrats are already immersed in influencing the 2020 election by virtue of the impeachment. We know about Trump and what he did. The voters will decide how much that counts with them. On the other side of things, we don't know about Biden. Do the voters have a right to know and to make up their minds? The greatest gift that Trump received in 2016 was James Comey announcing a week before the election that the investigation into Hillary's e-mails had been reopened. He banged that drum long and hard and won by a handful of votes in a small number of swing states. The fact that the reopening of the investigation came up with bupkus didn't matter. He asked Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens, hoping to be able to beat that drum silly again in 2020. He withheld money that had been authorized by Congress for the purpose of gaining an advantage over his likely 2020 foe. All of this is pretty much inarguable at this point. You seriously think the Democrats ought to let that slide?
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Post by Russell Letson on Nov 6, 2019 16:37:45 GMT -5
I understand the Democrats point of view. After 3 years they've finally found something they can hang on Trump. But the Democrats have been pushing impeachment for as long as Trump has been president. The fact that they were pushing for it long before they had a reason needs to be considered. [. . .] The Democrats have never made a secret of the fact they want Trump out of office and they don't care much how they accomplish it. Given that, the Republicans do have some justification for condemning the impeachment. Although the Democrats may be following the Constitution with regard to impeachment the entire effort seems to me to be nothing but a transparent attempt to remove a sitting president just because they don't like him. That seems tawdry to me and beneath the dignity of the Congress.Really? The Democrats? Not "some Democrats"? Or "some advocacy groups"? (E.g., Free Speech for People and RootsAction.) Why did Pelosi hold back the House until now? The earliest Congressional calls for impeachment came in mid-2017 (grounds: the firing of Comey amounting to obstruction of justice), and the effort didn't go anywhere--because other Democrats said it was too early to start such a serious process. Even Fox News says so. www.foxnews.com/politics/reps-green-and-sherman-announce-plan-to-file-articles-of-impeachmentOther proposals came up but failed to get any traction in the Democratic House. And "long before they had reason"? Like Trump's refusal to divest himself of his real-estate business, or to put it in the hands of his sons? Everybody saw that coming--it's a viable impeachment possibility for any non-Trumpist--and yet it's not on the current list of possible articles. And impeachment isn't "beneath the dignity of the Congress," it's one of its Constitutionally-defined jobs. (I don't know how "tawdry" comes to get detached from Trump's behavior and pasted onto Congress in this particular matter.)
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 6, 2019 16:59:33 GMT -5
I discussed this subject with a friend I had lunch with today. We agreed that the Senate won't convict and we're not very interested in the whole sideshow. It's necessary but our biggest hope is that it will soon come to its inevitable end.
I'll reiterate that generalizations about Democrats, like generalizations about Republicans, are all pretty much fictitious. We do not have a group mind. There's no secret cabal of media magnates, politicos and coastal elites who really control things.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Nov 6, 2019 17:15:26 GMT -5
I discussed this subject with a friend I had lunch with today. We agreed that the Senate won't convict and we're not very interested in the whole sideshow. It's necessary but our biggest hope is that it will soon come to its inevitable end. I'll reiterate that generalizations about Democrats, like generalizations about Republicans, are all pretty much fictitious. We do not have a group mind. There's no secret cabal of media magnates, politicos and coastal elites who really control things. The Senate will not likely convict? I'd say you'd get pretty good odds on that in Vegas. I want this thing to go all the way, and I accept he will likely not get one vote for impeachment from the Flaccid Fifty-Two. But I would like for them all to have to explain at some point why it was OK for Trump to hold back money authorized by Congress until he after he tried to muscle Ukraine's President to announce an investigation into the Bidens. I'd also like the Democrats to have to make the case to the voters that they did the right thing.
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Post by lar on Nov 6, 2019 17:36:48 GMT -5
It's difficult to try to defend myself when I'm being called to account for some things I didn't actually say. Russell is right when he says that the first time that it was announced that there were plans to file articles of impeachment. But I didn't say that. What I did say was that Democrats in Congress began saying that Trump should be impeached very early on. My comments were confined to statements about Congressional Democrats. As I recall, there were plenty of others calling for Trump's impeachment. Since none of them were elected officials empowered to become involved with the impeachment process I didn't mention them.
Am I missing some kind of logic here if I believe that Democrats talking about impeachment happens on the same day that Trump is sworn in that he hadn't yet had a chance to do something impeachable? That's all I'm saying.
I'll admit to being fuzzy about what the law says. My impression has always been that divestiture of assets or placing of assets into a blind trust was customary. If it's a requirement I stand corrected. Just to clarify, however, I believe that divestiture or a blind trust is a good idea whether it's required or not. Removing the appearance of conflict-of-interest is as important as removing the conflict itself.
Russell is also right when he says that impeachment is not beneath the dignify of Congress. It is part of their job description. I'm not certain why he might think that we disagree.
I don't see much to argue with in CasualplayerPauls comments. He pretty much echoed stuff I've already said. I'm not sure what Comey's inexplicable violation of Justice Department standards has to do with this, though.
I'm not sure where the idea came from that I'm in favor of letting slide what Trump did. I've never said that. I have questioned, and I think there is plenty of reason to do so, whether the Trumo/Zelensky affair would have been considered an impeachable offense if it were not for the fact that the Democrats want Trump out because they don't like him. I've already written my opinion about Trump's actions so I don't think I need to repeat it.
I did notice that although there is disagreement with much of what I wrote, and I expected that . . . I'm not right all of the time, no one bothered to mention the Bidens.
Here's what I think. What's happening in the house right now is an abomination to me. I'm angry as hell at both the Democrats and the Republicans. We deserve better than this and we've certainly paid for better than this.
But what I'm really ashamed of is that this country has become so entirely divided that intelligent people cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that someone with different views might at least have a point. We're in a winner-take-all fight and we're fighting ourselves.
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Post by jdd2 on Nov 6, 2019 17:55:48 GMT -5
Remember back when obama was going to be a one-term president?
Or the supposed 'fiscal responsibility' freedom cock-ass? (boy where did those guys disappear to!?!)
And what about the senate refusing to hold a hearing on a scotus nomination...
Yeah, it's all because the dems have been unable to acknowledge that someone with different views might at least have a point.
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Post by fauxmaha on Nov 6, 2019 18:14:44 GMT -5
Here's what I think. What's happening in the house right now is an abomination to me. I'm angry as hell at both the Democrats and the Republicans. We deserve better than this and we've certainly paid for better than this. But what I'm really ashamed of is that this country has become so entirely divided that intelligent people cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that someone with different views might at least have a point. We're in a winner-take-all fight and we're fighting ourselves. Just thought of a deal that should be made, and if it did would go a long way toward healing the country: - Republicans agree to impeach and remove Trump if Democrats agree to... - Prosecute and jail Obama/Clinton/Lynch/Brennan, etal....its a long list....everyone who manipulated the levers of state to fabricate the "Russian Collusion" narrative.
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Post by Chesapeake on Nov 6, 2019 18:19:47 GMT -5
Lar, the foundation of just about all of your observations and arguments is that this whole thing is only about Democrats trying to "get" Trump for political and partisan reasons.
There's no question that partisanship tends to motivate politicians. What I think most of you fail to acknowledge is that Trump is a special case. There are dozens and dozens and dozens, into the hundreds, of prominent conservatives on national and state levels, and in the conservative media, who have come out against Trump, not because of his political philosophy (insofar as he has a coherent one), but because of moral, ethical, and character issues. It shouldn't surprise us that an individual with no moral compass can't differentiate between right and wrong. In Trump's case we're left to argue that he might have done something wrong, but it wasn't illegal, or it was illegal but it wasn't impeachable.
You certainly don't see a Mitt Romney attacking Trump on policy issues. Or any of the other GOP members of the House and Senate who've announced their retirements and now seem to have come unshackled, free to say the Emperor is a deeply flawed man, if not unfit for office.
The objections didn't suddenly start on inauguration day. They date from the early days the campaign, when we were all were just getting to know Trump through his own words and actions. Obviously a lot of die-hard Trump supporters - probably most - cling to the belief that it's just more partisan politics. Which, to me, is like putting on blinders.
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 6, 2019 18:27:30 GMT -5
Lar, I didn't mean to suggest that people with views that differ from mine can't have a legitimate point. I just don't agree with your assertion that both sides are equally to blame here. The congressional Democrats are doing what I think they have to do, and what I would do if I were one of them. I can't very well be mad at people for doing what I'd do myself.
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Post by brucemacneill on Nov 6, 2019 18:32:52 GMT -5
Lar, the foundation of just about all of your observations and arguments is that this whole thing is only about Democrats trying to "get" Trump for political and partisan reasons. There's no question that partisanship tends to motivate politicians. What I think most of you fail to acknowledge is that Trump is a special case. There are dozens and dozens and dozens, into the hundreds, of prominent conservatives on national and state levels, and in the conservative media, who have come out against Trump, not because of his political philosophy (insofar as he has a coherent one), but because of moral, ethical, and character issues. It shouldn't surprise us that an individual with no moral compass can't differentiate between right and wrong. In Trump's case we're left to argue that he might have done something wrong, but it wasn't illegal, or it was illegal but it wasn't impeachable. You certainly don't see a Mitt Romney attacking Trump on policy issues. Or any of the other GOP members of the House and Senate who've announced their retirements and now seem to have come unshackled, free to say the Emperor is a deeply flawed man, if not unfit for office. The objections didn't suddenly start on inauguration day. They date from the early days the campaign, when we were all were just getting to know Trump through his own words and actions. Obviously a lot of die-hard Trump supporters - probably most - cling to the belief that it's just more partisan politics. Which, to me, is like putting on blinders. I'd need blinders. Can I borrow your's?
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